A nice skyline shot showing the nighttime lighting scheme of a few projects; in the foreground is the new Polk County Justice Center, which is civil court space and court administration office. And the pointy tower lit in white in the middle of the photo is the Equitable Building, which has renovation work just wrapping up to convert to apartments. This tower hasn't been lit on the skyline in almost a decade, so it's a welcomed addition to see Iowa's first high rise glowing again and with lights on in the windows too.

New 5 story mixed use building on the west end of downtown.

A new proposal in the emerging Market District on the SE corner of downtown, based on a project in Indy called Lockerbie Lofts.

The 5Fifty5 Rowhomes are partially completed and starting to be occupied.
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They've started slinging steel on the Krause Gateway Center, which is the corporate headquarters for the Kum and Go Convenience Store chain, and all of their subsidiaries. This is significant, as they are currently located in the suburbs of Des Moines.

While not tall, this will be a Renzo Piano-designed architectural masterpiece.

Great news on the proposed high rise project at 701 Walnut Street. It's grown from 26 to 33 stories and now features 336 apartments and 7 floors of office space!

This will be the tallest residential building in Iowa, once constructed.

Not taken today, but the 7th and Grand Parking Garage and retail development.

The Wilkins Building continues on for a summer 2017 occupancy. The hole in the foreground is where the 33 story 701 Walnut Street project will go.

The EMC Insurance Support Center should be completed this spring.

Looking forward to seeing things leaf out and get green this spring, but Phase I of the Walnut Street streetscape should be wrapped up once planting can begin.

The Marriott AC Hotel is now open for business. Just need to put the landscaping in this spring.

The Polk County Criminal Court project is well underway, which takes the former Polk County Jail and strips the building down to it's concrete base and then new stories will be added on top again. Been a unique process to witness.

Previous Building:

During Demo, stripped down floor by floor:

What it looks like now:

What it will look like, a little shorter than before:

This project has been rumored off and on for years, but officially this week, the Midland Building has now been purchased by a Chicago hotel developer, and will be restored and renovated into a boutique hotel.

A plan has emerged to take the nearly empty downtown shopping mall called "Kaleidoscope at the Hub", and transform it into an indoor public market, food hall, event space and vertical urban gardens.

What the space looks like today:

Some new renderings out of the future development plans for what is dubbed the "City Hall Parking Lot". The parking garage is under construction now, and two privately developed 'liner' buildings are slated for the north and south sides of the garage. A site on the west end of the garage is being left open for a future city hall annex.

An interesting couple of weeks here with a high rise proposal that's just been settled.

The 32-story 'The Fifth' project has been slated on the site for a city-owned parking lot, which means the bid for the land was competitive. At the 11th hour, a competing developer submitted a rival 35-story proposal shown below.

But in the end, the city ended up selecting the original proposal, with updated renderings shown below. The hopeful return of a downtown movie theater too.

One other update, a nice little rowhome project proposed for the Sherman Hill neighborhood, which is adjoining downtown.

But in the end, the city ended up selecting the original proposal, with updated renderings shown below. The hopeful return of a downtown movie theater too.

I like the selected (original) one better - even though the overall massing of the two proposals looks pretty similar from the renderings you shared, Fifth and Walnut looks like a more sustainably designed building. Or at least it looks to me to be more thought-through and more developed than the other one.

A highrise proposal called The Fifth was upsized to 39 stories tall, 452', which would be the 3rd tallest building in Iowa if built. The proposal includes 201 apartments, a 117 room hotel, office space, a 694 stall parking ramp and a 9 screen movie theater.

Gorgeous!

Demo of the existing parking garage has started.

And not to be outdone, the developer of the 33 story "The Blackbird" tower has announced a December groundbreaking.

^ Those renderings are commendable for having a reasonable / believable amount of people in them. Not like those flashy renderings where there's a huge block party happening with people pointing and staring at the marvelous new building.

Regarding the two skyscraper proposals, I'm disappointed to report that neither has started yet.

The site for The Fifth proposal (first photo) just wrapped up demolition efforts and the site is shovel ready. An early summer groundbreaking was the last I heard.

The other 33 story tower has been renamed The Blackbird (after the developer group's name). This one was set to break ground late last year when one of the big insurance companies in town made them an offer they're seriously considering. The insurance company would propose to swap them for a largely vacant downtown shopping mall called Kaleidoscope at the Hub for the original site of the tower. There are many hurdles, but if this plan moves forward, the mall would likely be demolished for the tower. The mall sits on a more attractive site with a better location and the insurance company ends up with a site adjacent to their campus of high rise buildings where they will likely add another mid-rise tower for their growing staff. Could be a big win-win, but it's easy to get more and more skeptical with each passing day.

Developers are really testing the waters with building materials in the East Village Neighborhood. What was previously a predominantly a red brick neighborhood has evolved into projects with a much more contemporary materials palette. There's loads of core ten steel already incorporated in, but the 418 E. Grand project has zinc panels for cladding. Another office project just getting ready to get started will incorporate a Japanese method of charring wood to be extremely long lasting and durable, called 'Shou Sugi Ban.'

While not in the East Village, this office/retail project called Miesblock will have a decorative metal scrim over the windows that could incorporate some great backlighting. A 7-8 story residential 'tower' is slated to start on the same block next year.

The Krause Gateway Center is turning out to be stunning and is just about fully enclosed. Completion is expected in late 2018, and this corporate headquarters will have a ground floor restaurant, extensive outdoor patio and gardens space, and a large private art collection available to the public. The landscaped rooftop overlooking DSM's sculpture garden will be used for corporate gatherings.

Pappajohn Sculpture Garden at night, the building will be on the right side of the photo in the spot that's staged for construction.

A look at some of the downtown hotels being worked on our proposed currently.

The Hotel Fort Des Moines has been sitting empty for the past few years awaiting historic tax credits, which it has recently received. This $43 million restoration will make this one of the nicest hotels in town and it will be brought under the Hilton Curio Collection of boutique hotels.

The Midland Building is a $40 million proposed restoration by the Aparium Group, which has also done other great signature boutique hotels around the Midwest.

A new Fairfield Inn will be built near the convention center and will be putting an addition onto a rather mundane 1970's office building that will be converted.

The Savery Hotel by Renaissance is nearly finished with a $30 million renovation that will keep the hotel relevant with others that are going a little higher end and has uncovered and restored some great art deco canopies that were covered with more modern additions.

And the Hilton Downtown Des Moines convention hotel is officially open for business.

There are at least 3 other hotels looking to build new downtown, but some are waiting on the sidelines to see how the market fares after some of the sizeable projects shown above get stabilized.

Regarding the two skyscraper proposals, I'm disappointed to report that neither has started yet.

The site for The Fifth proposal (first photo) just wrapped up demolition efforts and the site is shovel ready. An early summer groundbreaking was the last I heard.

The other 33 story tower has been renamed The Blackbird (after the developer group's name). This one was set to break ground late last year when one of the big insurance companies in town made them an offer they're seriously considering. The insurance company would propose to swap them for a largely vacant downtown shopping mall called Kaleidoscope at the Hub for the original site of the tower. There are many hurdles, but if this plan moves forward, the mall would likely be demolished for the tower. The mall sits on a more attractive site with a better location and the insurance company ends up with a site adjacent to their campus of high rise buildings where they will likely add another mid-rise tower for their growing staff. Could be a big win-win, but it's easy to get more and more skeptical with each passing day.

The Fifth site:

Potential land swap for downtown mall site in foreground:

" TRUST ME! " I've seen it all before and most definitely know how easily it is to get discouraged at the seeming ' snail's pace ' from proposal to construction start. However, just be patient. Such is common for big developments involving land swaps and multiple entities. A lot of dealmaking happens behind-the-scenes away from the public's eyes. Most often much has already privately occurred before these project's announcement. If it's like my hometown, usually through some prior-established generational trust, several longtime stakeholders possess minor ownership stake of current properties.

All of the legalities and negotiations take longer on certain projects than others. But, so long as the key players are determined to make something happen, it will. One side might just be awaiting the other's move and that doesn't necessarily involve money. In fact, quite often it just involves bureacracy and legal paperwork. You would know quickly, if these developments weren't going to happen. Meanwhile, switch focus upon other projects. These will get underway, in due course. Des Moines is so impressive. I'm just glad to see it ' take off ' .